


It’s not as if I can properly live without you

by Karratran



Category: Free!
Genre: I'm Sorry, M/M, Mostly just helplessly in-love idiots, Prompt - Firsts, Setting AU - Historical - Time travel - Reincarnation, but then I had to be an ass and do some angst, characters die but it's a reincarnation AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-21
Updated: 2014-11-21
Packaged: 2018-02-26 10:38:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2648978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karratran/pseuds/Karratran
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They’ve known each other for so many life times, they’ve shared so many memories together that they can’t remember them all, and they’ve loved each other so many times that their hearts can only long for each other, no matter what life they live.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It’s not as if I can properly live without you

Living lives wasn’t parallel to time. Nor it meant that in every life you looked the same nor had the same name, and most of the time you didn’t even meet the same people you met in one life. And even more, it was rare when you remembered _anything_ from a past life.

Everything is always random, and you never know when or where you’ll be born again. However, your lives might concentrate around one place, if it means that it will increase the chances of meeting _that one person_.

 

The first time they met–the very first time their worlds clashed together and wound so tightly around each other that there was no way they wouldn’t ever be drawn to each other no matter how many lives they lived–they were samurai during the Ashikaga shogunate.

The Mongolians were invading southwestern Nihon, Kyuushuu. They were severely outnumbered.

An arrow nearly impaled Haruka (that wasn’t his name back then, but if you ask him if he remembers, he will tell you that it isn’t important, and Rin will scold him), but it zipped right past his face because he had stopped advancing when he one of the samurai from another clan laughed.

It struck Haruka as music amongst the cries of pain and encouragement that their comrades and enemies uttered all around him in the battlefield. The startling cadence of the smooth laughing voice stood out bright and warm, and Haruka felt his world halt dead in its tracks for what felt like an eternity (it had been just a few seconds).

His fellow samurai was enjoying himself while battling–it was most certainly against their bushido, battles were nothing but a serious matter where their own honor was at stake– like it was a child’s game, effortless and fun, like a second nature, and Haruka could not look away.

Haruka had been known back then as the Black Lightning because of his sharp and fast strikes and his black hair. And how ironical it was that the same day his world slowed down to a snail’s crawl (in contrast to his speed), a thunderstorm pushed away the Mongol army.

Almost as if his thundering heart commanded the lightning and thunder themselves.

It took Haruka a while to find his boisterous fellow samurai again, weeks, months even. They bumped into each other while they were helping the building of the great stone barrier around Hakata Bay–twenty kilometers long, and a great aid against the Mongols–and they did not separate from then on.

Rin was known as the Red Dragon, an unstoppable–stubborn, Haruka would say–strength unrivalled by none and envied by all. And the fact that his hair was a strikingly vivid red might have been also a reason for the title.

It was during those years of constant battling and pain that made them realize that it was most likely the gods’ work that they met. That it was destiny.

Their strong trust to each other and their combined fighting styles gained them the title of The Legendary Fangs of Kirin itself. Haruka, fast as lighting, and Rin, strong as a dragon. Each, by themselves, were very strong, yet together, they were just as absolutely unstoppable as the typhoons that trashed Nihon.

An unlikely friendship that was born in the middle of a bloody battlefield bonded them together for, not only that life, but the next, and the next, and the next, and…

-

The first time they fell in love with each other, they were both sons of two daimyo, around the time feudal Nihon started.

Neither liked to remember what happened during that time, it simply hadn’t been the best time to find out that the guy you’ve shared plenty of lifetimes with was the one you loved. Not only because history hadn’t been kind at the time, but also because Rin was a monk, and Haruka had been married off to Rin’s sister.

It had been a forbidden love, in whichever way you looked at it.

Their hearts longed for each other, and they knew, they were very aware of each other’s feelings, but their duty did not allow them to act on those feelings.

-

The first time they kissed, Rin had stumbled on Haruka while he had been bent over in favor to tending to Rin’s family’s rice field.

Rin had been just about seven years older than Haruka. But he was still only the land owner’s son.

“Don’t you _dare_ to laugh!” The young master hissed. The murderous glare that he directed to his young, blue eyed servant was enough to make him suppress the quiet snicker that threatened to make itself heard. However, the amused glint in his eyes did not diminish.

Haruka had been working for Rin’s family for as long as he could remember, and since child he interacted a lot with the heir. They were really familiar with each other, but Rin tended to reiterate his status as master whenever Haruka made fun of him, or when any member of the Rin’s family was around. Their friendship was a hidden treasure, they both knew, and never dared to cross the line.

The miserable wet state of the redhead was, in lack of a better word, hilarious, but Haruka was aware that, even if they were tight friends, he could not shame his lord.

But the servant was still developing his own strength, so when he presented his hand to help Rin, his own weakness and the redhead’s weight pulled him down, on top of his master.

Rin threw his head back and barked a laugh–he was never quiet while laughing–and Haruka’s face filled with a very pretty crimson.

The thoughts of _idiot, weak, if someone sees you’re going to get beheaded, or worse, Rin’s going to get beheaded and it’s going to be your fault_ , crossed the young boy’s mind.

He felt his eyes water slightly.

The master’s laugh died down slowly when he noticed Haruka wasn’t making any noise and his body felt very tense. When he looked at Haruka, he found he couldn’t look away.

It was such a flustered, vulnerable, _enticingly cute_ expression the one Haruka was wearing. However, alarmed, Rin spluttered incoherently while he cupped Haruka’s face in his hands and wiped the fat tears that had started to roll down tanned cheeks.

“S-stop! Just stop, don’t cry, it’s okay, it’s okay! There’s no one around, no one saw you, we’ll be okay!” Rin chanted in hushed tones, trying to avoid getting the attention of whoever might be nearby.

But Haruka only scrunched his nose and frowned deeply while he forced his eyes closed. He could nearly feel the hit he would receive if they got caught.

Nearly freaking out, Rin’s brain stopped providing him with any rational thought, and he just pressed his lips against the boy’s.

The young servant only tensed more, but relaxed, and eventually he melted into the kiss.

Rin had been twenty one years of age, living his thirtieth life, approximately, and Haruka had been fourteen, living his forty fifth life, and it was the twentieth they shared together, but it was the first time they had felt that that much alive.

-

The first time Haruka cried Rin’s loss, it was around the time cruise ships started to leave Nippon.

Rin had been on a cruise that sunk and he hadn’t able to leave in time, because he was helping women and children get into the safe boats and survive, costing him his own life.

They didn’t meet in that life, but when Haruka heard of the news of the sunken ship, he cried, and cried, and cried so hard that he nearly died of a broken heart (not that anyone knew what it was a possibility, back then).

However, he lived, but that one life became colorless and bland, and Haruka never knew why.

-

The first time they made love, queer shaming was a thing of the past, primarily because most population in the world was long dead.

Small colonies of survivors managed to find clean areas and settled there, building large walls around them to protect themselves from the impetus of nature. Earth had claimed lost ground: volcanoes exploded (even the dormant ones), earthquakes grumbled and destroyed, hurricanes, tornadoes, typhoons, tsunamis… Earth shook some fleas off itself.

Rin and Haruka had met while scavenging some outside the walls.

At first, they didn’t tolerate each other, always believing the other to be in their way, taking things that could have been useful for them, competing to get the best things, and bickering over shiny nothings. But after months of always running into each other and interacting, they found that they didn’t dislike the other as bad as they thought, and started collaborating, leaving behind some goods for the other to find when they didn’t show up, if something was hard to get they would work together… things like that.

Even if the landscape was completely trashed and slightly hostile, it still felt inviting, providing for their adventures.

And both realized that it wasn’t just friendship they felt for each other.

Slowly, but surely, as their feelings started to grow and grow, they started to find ways to make some special things, gifts, something that would make the other happy and fond. And, as they grew closer, so did the sheer need to explore each other.

They had been seeing each other for months–years–and, although it had been spontaneous, not planned in the most minimal, the moment their hands connected that day, it was clear that they _needed it_.

At first, both of them had been so red in the face and their hands shook so hard that they almost forgot what was it they wanted to do. In whatever life they lived, Haruka was always the quiet one and Rin was always the boisterous one. But in this life, as they realized the sheer hilarity of their situation, both of them laughed at top of their lungs.

Their chests heaved with residues of laugher as they lay next to each other, and tears rolled from their eyes to their ears and tickled their scalps. Their minds cleared, though, and with the realization that they had nothing to fear, that they both belonged with the other, the smoldering looks, the searing kisses that scalded their mouths and bruised their lips felt like heaven, and they forgot the rest of the world. They forgot responsibilities, fears, pain, and their hearts soared.

Each kiss, each touch, each breath, felt like they were being marked, branded “you are mine”, and they couldn’t contain their joy at the thought of belonging to the other, _with_ the other, because there couldn’t possibly be anything better than that.

The little discomforts of being stretched and worry were soon replaced with heavenly friction and blissful thrusts, their tempo growing faster and deeper, their cries guttural and loud and fervent, every little thing, every big thing, _everything_ was made with such fondness, such love, that it didn’t matter to them whether the ground was rough and it scraped their skin, the wind was cold and the light of day was waning, for the minutes it lasted, _it was perfect_.

-

The first time they lost sight of how much they meant to each other, they were in middle school, Rin was abroad in Australia, and Haruka missed Rin.

-

The first time they broke each other’s heart, Rin was pretending to be over Haruka, and Haruka was pretending to be okay.

-

The first time they saved each other, they were in high school, and they both had dreams of greatness. Not quite at the same time, though, because it was Rin who needed to be saved first, and later, with his dreams, he saved Haruka, letting him grasp his own dream.

-

The first time they conquered the world together, they were 24, and they swam in a way that not one soul had seen before. Everyone in the public, everyone that watched them on TV, _everyone_ believed that the swimmers had wings, that they soared above the water and flew, surpassing every other swimmer, while shining white, warm light.

-

The first time Rin _made_ Haru cry, they were _old_. Very.

The life support machines signaled that Haruka was almost ready to go. His vitals were slowly, but surely, fading.

“You know, Haru,” Rin started.

It had been a long struggle when Haruka’s internal organs started to fail, because, even though the recent medicine breakthroughs were incredible and had extended their current lives to almost three times the early life expectancy’s length–they were a bit over two hundred years old–they were definitely beyond their due time. And the medicine also prolonged the dying process.

Haruka couldn’t speak, he had a tube down his throat to assist his breathing, make it easier for him, while ending this life, but he still turned to fix Rin the ever-loving stare he always gave him, a lives-long habit.

Rin swallowed with slight difficulty.

It’d hurt.

“I wanted to tell you something I found out a while ago, probably about seventeen lives ago…”

The skeptical look Haruka gave him told him just exactly what he thought, _as if you didn’t count them, idiot_.

A humorless snicker left Rin’s lips. “Yeah, well, I don’t know, we never lived this long, so…” _I’m kind of scared this will be the last time…_

Haruka squeezed Rin’s hand encouragingly as strongly as he could, but it only felt like a gentle squeeze.

“It’s a poem. It doesn’t fit perfectly, but I think it’s better that way. Will you listen?”

Haruka slowly nodded. It was as glaringly obvious as daylight that Rin was in pain.

_“I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times…_   
_In life after life, in age after age, forever._   
_My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,_   
_That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,_   
_In life after life, in age after age, forever._

_“Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, its age-old pain,_   
_Its ancient tale of being apart or together._   
_As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,_   
_Clad in the light of a pole-star piercing the darkness of time:_   
_You become an image of what is remembered forever._

_“You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount._   
_At the heart of time, love of one for another._   
_We have played alongside millions of lovers, shared in the same_   
_Shy sweetness of meeting, the same distressful tears of farewell-_   
_Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever._

_“Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you_   
_The love of all man’s days both past and forever:_   
_Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life._   
_The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours –_   
_And the songs of every poet past and forever.”_

Rin took a deep breath, his lungs not accustomed to such exertion since many years.

A low whimper made the coil around his heart fasten tighter. Rin darted his eyes to the monitors of the life support and to Haruka’s eyes.

The clouded with age blue eyes were filled to the brim with fresh tears, and the crinkles around them were more pronounced, as if Haruka were…

“Haru?” Rin breathed as he ran a hand through the, previously black, now white mop of hair.

A trembling hand reached Rin’s crinkled cheek, and caressed lightly.

Rin could easily read the smile in Haruka’s expression. He could read the _I love you too_ ’s and the _thank you_ ’s in each small tear that fell from his lover’s eyes.

In every life, Rin was the crybaby and Haruka would tease him for that, but in this life, Haruka was crying, and Rin didn’t know what to do.

_I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times…  
In life after life, in age after age, forever…_

 

-

He was certain this wouldn’t happen again.

Yet there he was, birthing.

The shock of fresh air, the first breath that brought him to tears, to his very first cry. Confusing hours of checking his physical wellbeing and cold and nudity and warm hands carrying him around and wrapping him in tiny clothes and warm blankets.

But it was until the sight of one of the most gorgeous red eyes looking back at him, recognizing him even in the chaos of the nursery room, from the incubator next to his, _loving him_ , it was clear to Haruka that no pain, no tears, no fear, nothing would be enough to keep him from returning to Rin, from loving Rin.

He was being born again. And he would keep coming back, just for Rin.

**Author's Note:**

> The name of the poem is "Unending Love" by Rabindranath Tagore.


End file.
